The CSIR and DuPont, an American chemical company seeking to address some of the world’s biggest energy, technological and nutrition challenges signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 14 April 2015.
Dr Rachel Chikwamba from the CSIR and Dr Richard Okine from DuPont signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organisations.
The renewed MoU will focus on materials sciences, water technologies, safety and security, biosciences, the built environment and nutrition and health.
Dr Rachel Chikwamba, Group Executive: Strategic Alliances and Communication, and Dr Richard Okine, President of DuPont Sub-Saharan Africa, signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organisations. Okine was accompanied by Dr Bjoern Meth, DuPont Sales Director Southern Africa & Country Leader South Africa, and Mmapule Tshabalala, DuPont Project Coordinator Marketing and Sales- Sub-Saharan Africa.
“The CSIR and DuPont have been working together for years in a variety of fields and had a MoU which expired. We had significant collaboration with the DuPont business pioneer hybrid programme on the fortified sorghum programme but we would like to renew our MoU as a sign of our continued commitment towards addressing challenges,” said Rachel.
Dr Happy Sithole, Director: CSIR Centre for High Performance Computing; Dr Manfred Scriba, Principal Technologist/Researcher: CSIR Materials Science and Manufacturing (MSM); Delon Mudaly, acting Executive Director for MSM; Dr Nivan Moodley, Operations Manager: CSIR Defence, Peace, Safety and Security; Dr Daniel Visser, Business Development Manager: CSIR Biosciences; Crescent Mushwana, Principal Technologist: CSIR Integrated Energy Centre; Llewellyn van Wyk, CSIR Principal Researcher: CSIR Built Environment (BE) and Dr Cornelius Ruiters, Executive Director: CSIR BE gave high level presentations to the delegation on possible areas of collaboration.
Nicki Koorbanally, Group Manager: CSIR Licensing and Ventures, Charl Harding CSIR Strategic Business Development Manager and Key Account Manager for the CSIR and Transnet partnership, and Ashley Bhugwandin, Localisation General Manager: CSIR Strategic Initiatives Implementation unit; spoke about other long-term potential areas of collaboration in technology localisation, strategic partnerships and technology transfer.
Okine said he was “very impressed” by the high level of expertise housed within the CSIR and the progress made in technological developments. He called upon scientists from both organisations to start working closely together on the focus areas of the MoU.
“Research and development can play an important role in alleviating the challenges faced by the country and the continent. As scientists, we like to do the innovations ourselves, but we need to work together and share ideas. I would like us to brainstorm and come up with new and exciting innovations to take this MoU forward. We must add value,” Okine said.
After signing the MoU, Daniel took the delegation on a tour of the bio-manufacturing industry development centre.
Click here to view a photo gallery of the event.
